What does PE and sport look like at Distington Community School?

At Distington Community School children are taught about the importance of being active. We promote the importance of physical activity and the need to be active for life, highlighting that sports, fitness and healthy eating have many long-lasting benefits.

All of our children receive a minimum of 2 hours of timetabled PE per week (or equivalent) as part of our broader whole school curriculum. Our experienced staff work hard to ensure that all PE lessons are inclusive, engage all children and promote the school spirit values. We aim to motivate all of our children, inspiring a lifelong love of participation in sport and physical activity.

In our EYFS and Key Stage 1 lessons are aimed more at skill development and focus on developing fine and gross motor skills; as well as, building the fundamental skills required to progress throughout Key Stage 2. During Lower Key Stage 2, lessons continue to build on the skills previously developed and look at applying these in small game situations across a variety of different sports. In Upper Key Stage 2, lessons progress further to involve participation in more specific game situations, providing children with the opportunity to collaborate with others as part of a team more effectively, promoting the development the tactical skills and understanding required to succeed and inspire life-long participation and enjoyment. 

Our children have many opportunities throughout the school year to be involved in a number of different 'Intra' and 'Inter School' school competitions. These include: Netball, Dodgeball, Sports Hall Athletics, Hockey, Multi-skills, Kwik Cricket, Kinder Cricket, Swimming (Small School Gala), Tennis and Football.

These are some examples of how we enhance the PE curriculum at Distington Community School:

• Minimum of 2 hours of taught PE per week.
• Working with specialist sports coaches (including CPD.)
• Engagement with KS1/KS2 competition calendar.
• Participation in St Joseph's Community Sports Programme.
• Participation in Panathlon (SEND) events e.g. ten pin bowling.
• Extra-curricular sports activities.
• Orienteering.
• Bike ability.
• Year 2-6 swimming (inc. extra/catch up session.)
• Links with local swimming clubs.
• Sports leaders.
• Sports crew.
• Gifted and talented 'Chance Camp.'
• St Joseph's holiday clubs.
• Promotion of Active travel.
• Daily use of 'Moki' activity trackers.
• Weekly whole school and class 'Active Hero' Competition.
• Wheelchair basketball sessions.
• Celebration of individual achievements both in school and outside school.
• Annual sports day.
• School games day(s.)
• Termly PE cluster meetings.
• Outdoor Activity Residential (alternate years.)

Our enthusiastic and motivated staff work hard to provide all children with many opportunities to engage with and experience in a wide range of different sports. We follow the 'Get Set 4 PE' scheme to support teachers confidences and understanding throughout school. In addition to this, children are encouraged to engage with PE lessons through the teachers use of higher order questioning, used to lead and develop skill progression. 

'Equal Access - Girls' Football in Schools' Award

Recently, we received an 'Equal Access - Girl's Football in Schools' award from The Football Association (in partnership with Barclays.) This is an award that only a small number of schools in Cumbria have achieved this year.

This is an award is in recognition of the equal opportunities we provide for all our children at Distington Community School to take part in and play football during their time with us.

As with all sports football is available for all children to access at our school and we provide opportunities for girls to participate and grow alongside boys. We also provide opportunities for our girls to take part in girls only events and support children with finding teams outside school to enable them to grow and develop.

We are extremely proud of this achievement and will continue to promote equal opportunities for both girls and boys across all sports.

#LetGirlsPlay

Year 3/4 Benchball at St Joseph's (12.11.2024)

Some of our Year 3 and 4 children joined forces this afternoon to take part in the annual Benchball competition at St Joseph's. They worked really well as a team and showed great enthusiasm only narrowly missing out on the semi finals.

They played 4 fantastic games during the group stage, winning 3 and only just loosing 1 of their matches. This was the same as two other schools in our group, it was incredibly close. Unfortunately, with an overall points difference that was 2 points less than both Ashfield and Seaton, it meant that we did not progress into the semi finals. We did win our playoff game though, eventually finishing 5 over all out of the 9 teams involved. The eventual winners this time around were Beckstone.

PE - Year 3 Fitness and Fundamental Skills

(Distance Running and Skipping.)

Children in Year 3 have been working with Reece, a specialist sports coach through the school sports partnership. Reece has been working with the children to improve their fitness levels and develop fundamental skills, such as: running, jumping, throwing and skipping. The children are working very hard during these session and are usually worn out by the end of the lessons. This week they have been working on distance running and pacing themselves, as well as skipping.